


in the back of your mind

by BonesOfBirdWings



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, No Beta, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Telepathic Bond, based on dreamless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 14:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18412538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonesOfBirdWings/pseuds/BonesOfBirdWings
Summary: When they sleep, they see through each other's eyes.





	in the back of your mind

When Abram burns his mother’s body to ash on a California beach, there’s a familiar weight behind the the ache of his eyes, and he knows Andrew is watching.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters to them, to his mother’s body and Andrew and himself. The fire is a beacon against the night sky. He runs from the pyre, his shoes sinking into the sand and the duffel bag banging against his hip. He runs and runs until he can feel Andrew slipping away. The loneliness eats at him. When he can’t take it anymore, he huddles in an alleyway and closes his eyes.

* * *

Andrew scrambles to hold on to sleep, but wakefulness drags him inexorably away from Abram. He rubs a hand across his eyes, as if he can wipe away the sight of Mary Hatford through sheer will. It doesn’t work. It never does.

Andrew won’t mourn the woman. Sure, he’s experienced firsthand her devotion to Abram, but he’s also felt the slaps, the cruel bite of her nails, the sharp edge of her tongue. If Wesninski hadn’t killed her, Andrew eventually would have, just so his sleep would finally be restful.

That’s what he tells himself, but it rings hollow even to him. He’s grown up with Abram in his head, each visiting the other during sleep. He lived in the Butcher’s house alongside him. Abram lived behind his eyes, experiencing every terrible foster home. He can use knives because a blond, cruel woman taught him how. Abram can throw a punch because a couple of Andrew’s foster brothers taught him too. 

Andrew has a list of people that he’d like to kill. Nathan Wesninski is at the top of the list. Mary Hatford was up there, but the Butcher caught up to her before Andrew could.

Despite everything, Andrew’s glad that Abram’s in California. Andrew lived around there enough for Abram to be able to quickly find his bearings once he hits the Bay Area. He knows that Abram will be out of there soon - he has to keep running - but the familiar surroundings will hopefully be a little bit of a comfort.

Andrew drags himself out of bed with an effort. He doesn’t want to take the pills - neither he nor Abram like the medication. But if he doesn’t, he’ll go into withdrawal in the middle of practice and Wymack will yell at him. With his luck, that will be when Abram’s hanging around, and then the kid will wake himself up with a panic attack. So, yeah, easier to just take the pills.

He’s on his way to court when Abram slips into place, a familiar, heavy weight behind his eyes. “Who goes to sleep at 5am?” he mutters to Abram. It’s 8am in South Carolina, but the EST to PST conversion is easier than a lot of other time zone math that Andrew’s had to do. “Idiot. You better be somewhere safe or I’ll kill you myself.”

There’s a small trickle of amusement from Abram. They can’t communicate with each other like this, but they’ve discovered that there’s a small emotional bleed. Andrew had been convinced that it was his imagination, but Abram had brought it up one night after Lola had finished with one of her “lessons”. Apparently Andrew’s violent rage had made it all easier to bear.

Practice that day is more difficult to tolerate than usual. The Foxes grate on Andrew, who is already off-kilter from the feel of his almost-mother’s blood under his hands and the acrid stench of burning flesh. He plays as well as he can, though, shocking the team. Nothing calms Abram quite like Exy, the junkie that he is. Andrew tells himself that when he shuts down the goal, it’s not for Abram, but he recognizes it as a lie. 

There’s a sense of gratefulness from Abram when he slips away around lunch. Somehow that makes everything better. Andrew would hate how dependent he was on this boy that he’s never even met, but, well…. They’ve been together for their whole lives. Two halves of the same whole. He eats his food mechanically and imagines sliding a knife between Nathan Wesninski’s ribs, over and over and over.

* * *

Neil goes south, not east. It’s easier to be in a timezone that’s offset from Andrew’s. Andrew has Exy practice and Neil has school, so they can’t default to their childhood habit of one of them being nocturnal in order to spend the maximum amount of time in each other’s head. 

Still, they only average about three hours per day for each of them. It’s long enough for Neil to learn about Kevin’s situation.

Andrew knows Kevin - he was in the back of Neil’s head when the Butcher cut up a man in front of both of them. He’d been disdainful of the boy ever since, especially when Neil started collecting clippings of Kevin and Riko. He’d been very ready to throw Kevin back to the wolves, but Kevin had been willing to make a deal. Neil also has a sneaking suspicion that Andrew did it in part for Neil, but he knows better to suggest that to Andrew.

Andrew’s three hours in Neil’s head are generally right before Neil goes to sleep. He spends the time murmuring in a low voice about the rest of the day that Andrew missed, doing bits and pieces of homework to avoid boredom, and drawing half-finished doodles on scraps of paper. It’s a game that they’d made up when they were little. Neil would draw one half of a story, and on the other side of the country, Andrew would respond by drawing the other half the next day.

When Andrew wakes up from the inky blackness of sleep, the nothingness that exists when they’re both asleep, Abram is along for the ride. He always wakes up a half-hour earlier than he needs to in order to get to practice on time, and he spends that time finishing Neil’s doodle stories. He takes the medication as late as he can get away with. Neil never thanks him for either of these kindnesses, but some days he goes to the school library and finds recipes for pastries that he writes on index cards during the night. Andrew never thanks him for that either, although he tries everything that Neil finds for him at least once.

They still write truths to each other on bits of paper. But after years in each other’s heads, there’s not much left to reveal. Still, Neil will write stuff like “I actually like math” and “today was a bad day” and “sometimes it feels like i died on that beach”.

Andrew will reply, “i hate these meds” and “today i wanted to kill Aaron” and “i hate Mary for what she did to you”.

Both of them know how stupid it is for Neil to join the Exy team, but besides a muttered, “idiot junkie”, Andrew never tries to talk him out of it. They’ve been witness to all of each other’s self-destructive behaviors. And honestly, anything that Mary was vehemently against, Andrew is inclined to encourage, just to spite the bitch. Neil can run if things get bad anyway.

* * *

There’s a couple of days when Neil and Andrew keep missing each other. It’s not something that Neil worries about much. Sometimes it happens, and from the glimpses of Andrew’s life that Neil catches, it seems like it’s recruitment season for the Foxes.

There’s one night that Neil isn’t in Andrew’s head at all. He only feels Andrew’s presence a little bit before he goes to sleep, and when he wakes up, Andrew stays for a half-hour before he’s gone.

Neil doesn’t know why Andrew’s on Neil’s sleep schedule, but his question is neatly answered when he comes face to face with the other half of himself.

“Andrew,” he breathes, his fingers twitching to run through his blond hair, to touch his hands, to reassure himself that Andrew’s real and not some elaborate hallucination.

Andrew crooks a smile at him, although it’s too bright and wide thanks to the meds. “Junkie.”

When Wymack offers the contract, signing is a foregone conclusion. Maybe he’ll draw the notice of his father and his associates, but the siren call of Andrew and Exy is too powerful to resist. With the way that Andrew grips the hem of Neil’s shirt, drawing strange looks from Wymack and Kevin, Neil resigns himself to the knowledge that he couldn’t run even if he wanted to.

He knows that for the first time, he’s right where he belongs.

**Author's Note:**

> Woah, my first and maybe only AFTG fic. I just wanted to write this bit, but i might write a sequel. who knows. I took this concept from the webcomic Dreamless, so if you want to use this AU in another fic, you have as much right to as I did. I don't have the patience to write a long fic for this canon (my bnha long fic is my priority until it's done), but i'm having a lot of fun reading all of y'alls fics.
> 
> to my long-suffering subscribers: sorry for the fandom hop (again). i'll be back in bnha soon.
> 
> to my habitual betas: i didn't want you to beta this 1.5k mess that i wrote in a couple of hours because i love y'all


End file.
